How about this Bryan - I bring you my fuselage and you can tell her it is yours. After (or during the time) you get it all put back together if she leaves, you will pay me to come get it. If she stays, I will send you the engine. When it is flying if she still hasn't left you can pack your stuff in it and move to Louisiana.

Man we derailed the hell out of this thread - sorry bout that, lol.

The thing that scares the hell out of me...for all of you, is that your respective wives might look at this forum! Gods you guys are brave.

If my woman would read these forums I would marry her on the spot. I bring up a airplanes and her ears turn off and she runs. Don't worry they will never read it

I don't want to sound like a wimp but my wife likes to fly with me and is very supportive. I get stuff for the airplane as long as she gets an equal cost item that she wants. She doesn't want to learn to fly, although I've tried to get her interested many times. She says it's too complicated and stressful. She was pretty nervous when she first started flying with me but now she falls asleep in the first 10 minutes. She supported me buying the Maule as long as we go interesting places with it. Anyway, I just wanted to set the record straight that not all spouses hate airplanes.

yep, bad thread high jack! Good thing this isnt the red board! 😆😆.
I don't know squat about fasteners for the wing tips BUT i have been married to the same fine (and very tolerant) woman for 40 years and DON't want her to leave!

Apparently none of us knows much about fasteners for wingtips, and this conversation is simply a way to keep from admitting our ignorance? Did MM start the tangent?

I'll be in YouTube 'til someone finds the right answer,....for the tip fasteners.

I'm starting to think rivnuts, 100 degree washers, #8 machine screws, putting fiberglass over top of skin. Might have to make more adjustments to the skin to reduce the circumference so that the fiberglass can be moved from inside to out not crinkle the skin.... I'll tackle it this weekend and let u know how it turns out

If you have a rivnut gun, that actually would be the best way. I would hate to hand rivet all those rivnuts though - but hey, I DO have a rivnut gun!

andy wrote:... She was pretty nervous when she first started flying with me but now she falls asleep in the first 10 minutes. ...

So at first it was edgey, exciting. Now she just finds your flying boring?
Sounds like my love life.

So at first it was edgey, exciting. Now she just finds your flying boring?
Sounds like my love life.

Either she finds my flying boring or it's so scary that she'd rather keep her eyes closed.

My droop tips were riveted on. I converted them to screws/nutplate last annual. Love it. Also had to make access easier because I installed wing tip strobe lights. It was fairly easy to install the nutplates, just lots of them. I used the floating type which helps make the screws line up in the holes for the nutplates easier, more forgiving. The droop tip installation on my M4 may be different then your Maule. Mine has a strap that rivets to the tip rib with a joggle in it so as to allow the fiberglass wing tip to be sandwiched in between this strap piece and the wing skin. I installed the nutplates to the strap piece. From looking at the M5 drawings, another way the tips might be installed is sandwiched between the tip rib and the wing skin. I'm not framiliar with this installation though. I would recommend nutplates over rivnuts. Nothing beats the frustration of a rivnut that spins on you when trying to remove the screw. Even the keyed type. The just are not going to last and be as durable as nutplates. Nutplates are made of steel, rivnuts from aluminum.

That's a good point on the rivnuts. I recall using them on the door post of my Boot cowl and having hell when they spun beneath. Plus the holes were a pain to align. I do have a big gallon zip loc bag of floating nut plates I guess using those is a must. Can you send me a pic of this joggles plate on your leading edge or a sketch? I'm having a hard time picturing it. I'm betting it was something to accommodate the gap now between the rib and skin.

My vote is also for nut plates even if you have to buy a nut plate drill jig in the lone run you will be glade you didn't put rivnuts , use rivnuts only when you can't install a nut plate. For wing tips, fixed nut plates work fine- no need for floating nut plates.

Here is a quick drawing I did to show my installation, hope it helps. Cannot remember if the strap pieces were on top of the rib flanges or between the rib and the wing skin. Drew it with them on top of the ribs. Maule has some drawings for using these straps but I could not find a good cross section to show how the pieces were layered.

[/img]